Chordogram

Representation of the Chroma- and Timbre features for the song “Insane in the Brain - Cypress Hill”

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This chroma and timbre based self-similarty matrix represents the pitch and timbres’ structure for the song "Insane in the Brain by the notorious West Coast rap collective Cypress Hill. The chroma and timbre matrices differ greatly in terms of structure. Only the start and end of the song seem to have some similarities. The square boxes visible in both matrices are positioned in different places. No clear structure can be seen in both figures.

Introduction: West v.s. East Coast Hip-Hop

My corpus consists of different playlists representing two different genres of hiphop; west coast and east coast rap. These styles of hiphop derive from the east vs west coast rivalry from the mid 1990s. The four playlists I have curated represent different eras’ of west/east coast music. They will allow me to uncover the musicological differences in these styles. I have two playlists for both types of west and east coast hiphop. One from its native time period, the mid 1990s as well as from today. Comparing modern and old school east and west coast rap will hopefully result in interesting findings. The production and beats of each of these genre’s differs and I hope my research will help produce some answers in a more a data orientated and technical sense.

The playlists in question:

East Coast:

-I love my East Coast classics (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWYGxBNe4qojI?si=Vnk0_2JORM6iL9ZK687ohQ)

-State of Mind (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX1YPTAhwehsC?si=qaVXWuBySnWcegc6X_q0ug)

West Coast:

-I love my West Coast classics (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX9sQDbOMReFI?si=vn1s69TjRxqx43Kc62lVxA)

-Cali Fire (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3X0Ds1IEYdG1DL0sxCuW6y?si=-G0PuulVTFGmY2oaP490Ag)

East Coast hiphop carries a more aggressive sound, while West Coast hip-hop is more laid back. East Coast natives are Jay Z, Notorious BIG, Nas, Rakim, Run DMC, KRS One. West Coast hiphop is mainly for chilling out and partying. Notable artists include The Game, 2Pac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Grandmaster Flash. The west coast scene also popularized g-funk, a fusion between hip-hop and funk music. Some artists might have elements that are more similar to one genre vs the other. It will be interesting to see who has influenced who? Whether this was identified mainly through vocals or production.

West vs East Coast

Energy

[1] "East Coast Classics: We Gonna Make It. Its energy: 0.961000"

[1] "West Coast Classics: Ambitionz Az A Ridah. Its energy: 0.908000"

[1] "East Coast Modern: Game Time. Its energy: 0.871000"

[1] "West Coast Modern: Children Of The Void. Its energy: 0.907000"

[1] "East Coast Classics: 0.682140"

[1] "West Coast Classics: 0.653700"

[1] "East Coast Modern: 0.628840"

[1] "West Coast Modern: 0.605760"

Loudness

[1] "East Coast Classics: Knock Yourself Out. Its loudness: -2.619000"

[1] "West Coast Classics: The Streets - Re-Twist. Its loudness: -2.892000"

[1] "East Coast Modern: Trust. Its loudness: -2.909000"

[1] "West Coast Modern: Children Of The Void. Its loudness: -3.053000"

[1] "East Coast Classics: -7.456600"

[1] "West Coast Classics: -8.011060"

[1] "East Coast Modern: -6.987280"

[1] "West Coast Modern: -7.270400"

Variables

# A tibble: 1 x 5
  mean_popularity mean_danceability mean_valence mean_energy mean_acousticness
            <dbl>             <dbl>        <dbl>       <dbl>             <dbl>
1            56.8             0.802        0.646       0.654            0.0840

# A tibble: 1 x 5
  mean_popularity mean_danceability mean_valence mean_energy mean_acousticness
            <dbl>             <dbl>        <dbl>       <dbl>             <dbl>
1            59.9             0.766        0.645       0.682             0.157

ggplot histogram

Comprehensive Visualisation

Modality comparison

Loudest Song from the East Coast classics playlist

Knock Yourself Out - Jadakiss

Loudest Song from the Modern East Coast playlist

Trust - Fivo Foreign

Loudest Song from the West Coast classics playlist

The Streets, Re-Twist - WC, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg

Loudest Song from the Modern West Coast playlist

Children of the Void - Ramirez, SosMula

Conclusion: Discussion of findings

Blah blah

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